7/5/16 Report - Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found In Western Hemisphere. Skill, Effort and Luck. First Metal Detector Ever.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasrebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found In Western Hemisphere
Source: http://www.goldrushnuggets.com/bootofcortez.html

Did you ever hear of the Boot of Cortes?  It is the largest gold nugget ever found in the Western Hemisphere.  It weighs 389.4 grams.

That is amazing enough, but how do you think it was found.  If you guessed by a metal detector, you'd be right.  

A fellow heard about nuggets being found in an area in the Southwest and, of course, he wanted to find his own, so he bought a metal detector.  What do you think he bought?  Remember, this is a fellow who found a record breaking gold nugget.  You might think it was a Minelab GPX 5000 or some other high-end gold detector.  Actually, it was nothing like that.

The year was 1989, and the fellow bought his metal detector at a Radio Shack store.

If you are old enough to remember, Radio Shack sold metal detectors back in the 1980s and earlier. My grandma got one maybe around 1960.  She probably paid less than $20 for it. I don't remember the exact year, but I do remember the detector and trying it out.

That was the first time I ever used a metal detector, and as I recall it wouldn't detect much.  I don't think it would even find coins.  We would find things like horse shoes and door knobs.

Of course, neither grandma nor I really knew what we were doing at the time.  And I don't remember the details very well, but it wasn't really a very good detector.

Our story about the Boot of Cortes starts about thirty years later than that (1989), so I'm sure it was better detector than the one grandma and I had.  Yet it wasn't a high-end gold detector.  I'm sure that the Radio Shack detector that found the Boot of Cortes was nothing like a modern top of the line gold detector.

One point I want to make today is that some of the best finds are made with less than the best equipment and are made by people that are not always the most skilled.  As I've detailed over and over again, many amazing discoveries are made by accident and without any metal detector at all.

Anyone who put a coil on this nugget would have detected it.  What made this find so special is what made it easy to find.  It was huge.  It didn't require any high level of skill and it didn't require the best detector.

You'd just have to put your coil on it and dig it.  I'm sure there are people out there who would get that signal, decide it could not be a gold nugget, and pass it up.

This fellow was digging everything it seems.

Here is what I read.   He learned how to operate it, and then he set out for an area that was reported to have produced nuggets. Once there, he started to walk; slowly and carefully across the desert, all the while following a grid pattern that would ensure that no areas would be unchecked. Hundreds of boring hours slowly ebbed away with an occasional 'beep' from his ear-phones to signal a potential find. Most were due to scrap iron or old lead bullets. Then one day; the 'beep' sounded a little different. Digging down; he caught that first gleam from his own personal El Dorado. Hardly believing his eyes he kept digging, the gleaming surface kept going - and going. By the time he had completely uncovered this incredible nugget, it was obvious that it was huge.  

That would be totally exciting.

This is also a story of patience and persistence.  

There is always some measure of luck and skill and effort involved.  Skill is doing the things you can to improve the probability of success.  Luck has to do with the things you can not know and can not control.  Skill improves the chance of success, but when it comes to any particularly special find, there is always some luck involved.  I'd say that is something like life in general.

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When was the first time a metal detector was used?

The first time a metal detector was used was back in 1881 by its inventor Alexander Graham Bell who used the detector to try to find the bullet in the body of assassinated US President James Garfield.

It is said that the metal detector worked but did not find the bullet partly because of the metal bed frame on which the President was lying.

Sorry.  I forget where I read that.

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The most read post of June was the 6/8/16 Report - Treasure Coast Treasure History: Cobb Coin VS Unidentified Wreck. 2000 Year Old Cache of Hasmonian Coins.
  

And the most Google Plused post was the 6/26/16 Report -  Found Fashion - Post-Apocalyptic Fashion by TG.  This one wasn't read by many people, but it seems some of the people who did read it really liked it.

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No change in beach conditions.  More of the same, except the holiday weekend probably increased beach traffic.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net